!!For the franchise in general:* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: ** Rayford Steele: Relatable everyman, and stand up guy? Or self important JerkAss?** Buck Williams: Competent reporter with great writing charisma? Or [[PiratesWhoDontDoAnything lazy bum who barely reports]]?** Hattie Durham: Provocative woman who deserved her fate? Or sympathetic victim? ** Irene Steele: Loving, caring, christian who only wants the best for her family? Or selfish, self righteous, fanatic who gets antsy when people don't believe in what she believes?** The Other Light members: Deluded fools who want Satan to defeat God, helpless pawns of fate since they are prophecied to do that (and lose), or heroic freedom fighters?* AngstWhatAngst:** You'd think that the complete eradication of all kids under the age of ten would be a bit depressing, but people seem to take it in stride. Given how much disruption this would have on the global population, this approaches CosyCatastrophe levels.** If you happen to be a parent who never really wanted a child in the first place, that would seem to be a boon.* CriticalResearchFailure:** The nature and functioning of the UN. Possibly the nature and functioning of humanity, considering the ease with which [[GlobalCurrency one world currency]] and, even worse, [[OneWorldOrder one world government and religion]] are instituted.** The often questionable interpretations of the Bible. For instance, the fourth horseman from the book of Revelation, also known as Death, is said to apparently be the Antichrist by Bruce Barnes, the priest. Thing is, the word "Antichrist" isn't mentioned a single time in the book of Revelation. In fact, opinions vary a ''lot'' on whether the Antichrist is supposed to be the name of a specific person or just an adjective, like "anti-communist" (as it is used in the Epistles of John). So having Bruce say that the fourth horseman is ''apparently'' the Antichrist is just stupid.** The plotline about the recruitment of Rayford, a civilian airline employee, as pilot for UsefulNotes/AirForceOne. In case the '''name''' of the plane didn't make this clear, Wiki/TheOtherWiki has a list of all previous Air Force One pilots. All were military officers, none below Lieutenant Colonel. ** On top of that, Air Force One isn't really a single, specific plane. It's a shorthand for "Air Force plane that the President is currently using or about to use". Strictly speaking, there can no longer ''be'' an Air Force One, since the term only makes sense in a strictly American Air Force context.** At the end of ''Tribulation Force'' and the beginning of ''Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist'', Nicolae ''finally'' does something properly evil by launching World War III. This takes the form of World War II-style bombing raids targeting such things as hospitals and airports...except that they use ''100-megaton nuclear bombs''. The largest human-caused explosion ''ever'' was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba Tsar Bomba]], which was a mere ''50'' megatons, but it still destroyed buildings hundreds of kilometers away from the test site. If even ''one'' 100-megaton bomb was dropped on a city, let alone several, that city would not look like London during the blitz (which is what is shown in the book) but a glass crater, and it wouldn't matter ''where'' it hit. ** Buck Williams receives an "exclusive" interview with the new U.N. Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia, which is scheduled for after Carpathia speaks to a number of other journalists. An "exclusive," as the name would suggest, is when an interview subject talks ''exclusively'' with one journalist or organization on a subject.** Buck arrives at Penn Station in New York City, walks for miles and miles until he's ready to collapse from exhaustion, finds a bicycle, counts it as a blessing from God, rides it for several miles more, and finally arrives in Midtown Manhattan. The northern border of Midtown Manhattan is at 59th street. The southern border is more disputed, with some placing it at 34th street, others at 23rd street, and some as far south as 14th street. Penn Station is at 34th street. In other words, there is no version of Midtown Manhattan where Buck wasn't already in it the minute he arrived at Penn Station. What's more, the island of Manhattan is only thirteen miles long (with Penn Station being about three miles from the southern tip). There aren't many places in it that require traveling miles and miles and miles to reach.** The Jordan River is presented as a huge, broad river with heavy boat traffic, rather than the unnavigable stream it really is. Many Americans, especially those influenced by spirituals, have a tendency to picture the Jordan like the Mississippi, but LaHaye has actually visited Israel and should know better.* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy:** Both 'sides' in the series have exactly the same goals and use pretty much the same methods, [[BecauseDestinySaysSo everything that happens is part of God's plan]] and, as such, the characters have no free will and [[YouCantFightFate nothing they do at any point in the series makes any difference whatsoever]], so it's really rather difficult to root for them.** The fact that thanks to massive ValuesDissonance, GodAndSatanAreBothJerks, and like their minions have nearly the exact same goals: Nicolae wants to kill everyone who doesn't worship him, as does Jesus. Nicolae wants to take over the world and establish a one-world religion comprised of people who worship him. Jesus also wants this (and gets this in the 13th book in the series, [[Recap/LeftBehindBook13KingdomCome Kingdom Come]]). The only difference between the two is power-levels, and it is a massive difference. Jesus is really powerful, while Nicolae is an IneffectualSympatheticVillain. Rather than choosing Jesus out of moral conviction, it seems quite likely that anybody who joins the 'good' side after the Rapture is simply joining the side that ''cannot lose,'' which is hardly proof of virtue.* DesignatedHero: Buck and Rayford. Most of their behaviour goes beyond even the standards of a SociopathicHero. One could argue they're supposed to be newly-converted Antiheroes, but this doesn't hold up since they never do anything for anybody.* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The cookies.* EndingFatigue: The last several books of the Left Behind series suffered from this problem. After the Antichrist came back from the dead, killed people with fiery pillars from the sky, and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, there just wasn't anything more evil for him to do. And that was Book Eight of a 13 book series (not counting the three prequels). It doesn't help that anyone who will read that particular series through Book Eight already knows the ending (spoiler: [[spoiler:Satan loses]]) and is just slogging along to see exactly how they're going to get there.* EnsembleDarkhorse: A unique case: Outside of the target audience, ''any'' character with a significant fanbase arguably stands out.** The sleepy drunk executive from chapter one is [[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2003/12/30/lb-my-favorite-character-so-far/ described with genuine fondness]] by the Slacktivist blog, mostly for actually having [[OnlySaneMan a sane reaction to the Event]].** To say nothing of poor Verna Zee, Buck's boss.** T. Mark Delanty from books 5/6/7 is also notable for two reasons. One, [[WhatTheHellHero he called Rayford out]] on being a total {{jerkass}} and got the man to admit he was wrong. Two, he's one of the few people in the books who actually comes off as genuinely good.** Jonathan Stonagal, a supporting antagonist who doesn't survive the first book, is surprisingly widely regarded as having had a great deal of wasted potential. It doesn't hurt that in the film adaptation, his character is actually played up something fierce, to the point that he comes off as a serious contender for the "Antichrist" position.** Loretta, the only person at the church seen to get things done while Bruce the pastor builds a hole in the ground to hide in with only his "inner circle."** Cendrillon Jospin. For a PosthumousCharacter who only exists as an example of a good person who goes to Hell anyway due to not being a believer, she sure shows up a lot in fanfics.* FanNickname[=/=]RunningGag:** "Fan" is a misnomer, but readers of the aforementioned blog by Fred Clark have made a running joke on Slacktivist of referring to Carpathia as "Nicky (insert mountain/mountain range name here)"; recently, a new nickname, [[ComicBook/TheTick Chairface Carpathia]], seems to have caught on. Buck, the Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time, is called the GIRAT. The authors ([=LaHaye=] and Jenkins) are often abbreviated to "Ellenjay".** "Meta-(character)" is frequently used by the same community used to describe any character who seems to be showing signs of behaving like an actual human being in the actual situation they are currently in. This title often confers a sort of temporary EnsembleDarkHorse status as well.* FirstInstallmentWins: The first book is the best-selling and most famous.* HoYay: Given what branch of Christianity is responsible for this series, we are talking very, ''very'' unintentional. The proliferation of names like Steele, Buck, and Plank doesn't help.* IdiotPlot: The series is meant to be a literal translation of The Revelation of St. John, as interpreted through the modern lens of the Rapture. Unfortunately, the Revelation of St. John wasn't written with anything resembling a modern story structure, much less [[CharacterDevelopment character arcs,]] and as a result the [[GainaxEnding story comes across as nonsensical]]. Characters react in [[CozyCatastrophe entirely]] [[EasyEvangelism unbelievable ways]], events happen for [[DeusExMachina seemingly no reason,]] and we are expected to root for (or against) characters [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality based entirely on which side they're fighting on]], [[MoralDissonance regardless of how they act]]. Is it any wonder that this book series isn't really liked outside of its target audience?* JustHereForGodzilla: Epic demon armies and plagues wracking the Earth? Skip to those and ignore the unsympathetic characters.* MarySuetopia: Jesus Christ's Millennial Reign in ''Kingdom Come'' is a utopia for "naturals" [[ReligionIsRight as long as they obey God's laws]]. They have all the amenities of the technological world (Sort of: the book was written in 2007, but with a few exceptions the tech level is firmly stuck in the mid-90s), have eternal life, perpetual sunshine, no war or violence. Even non-believers can live for a hundred years in perfect health. * MisaimedFandom: Among non-fans, it's hard not to feel more sympathetic for non-Christian characters (Chloe before her conversion, back when she was tough, independent and questioning), and to dislike the heroes, who come off as rather arrogant.* MoralEventHorizon: Nicolae crosses this '''when he was still a child''' by conspiring with Viv Ivins to kill his mother.* {{Narm}}:** Quite a bit of it, but [[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2007/01/19/lb-boutros-boutros-carpathia-2/ Carpathia's speech to the U.N.]] stands out, considering it's essentially a 4th grader's class report on what the U.N. is, followed by an ''alphabetical list of the nations that are members.'' One possible interpretation is that this is an IntendedAudienceReaction, to emphasize his supernatural ability to win people over. He could read the entire contents of a telephone book to the assembled people of the U.N. and they would still be falling on their faces for him. Problem is, if that's the case then it still fails since you get the impression that the authors intended the speech to be good.*** You know it's bad when ''[[http://disq.us/p/e7tyk6 one of the people in the comments section]]'' is able to write a more convincing version ''off the top of their head'' (written by one Calum Cameron).** People are raptured without their clothes - thus, the raptured leave behind piles of empty clothing. So the first sign of the end of the world was a field of underpants.** In the Book of Revelation, the Two Witnesses are said to destroy any who threaten them with fire from their mouths. When they show up in this series, people who threaten them... collapse dead from heart attacks. The antifans have taken to calling them "the Trip-and-Fall Guys".* NewerThanTheyThink: The doctrine of the Rapture as presented in the series really only came into being 2 centuries ago at most.* NightmareFuel:** The description of the final fate of Carpathia and Fortunato after 1,000 years in the Lake of Fire (writhing in torment in fire and brimstone and continuously crying "Jesus is Lord" over and over) with the understanding that they will spend eternity like that, not to mention all the unbelievers who are doomed to join them.** When Steele had a handshake with Carpathia. You don't want to see the latter's face.* OneOfUs: The Slacktivist (real name: Fred Clark), who mercilessly critiques the series in his blog, often mentions tropes by name and makes other {{Troperiffic}} references. And it's explicitly confirmed [[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2008/01/18/lb-the-holy-han/ at the end of this post]] that the Slacktivist is indeed a fellow Troper.* {{Padding}}: For those with BileFascination looking for a cheesy book to enjoy, they're usually shocked at how much ''nothing'' goes on, especially some of the middle books.* PeripheryDemographic: Many -- if not most -- of the books' readers were just mainstream agnostic Americans looking for a good supernatural thriller, like ''Literature/TheStand'' or ''Literature/TheLangoliers''. The first book even has a very similar setup to ''The Langoliers'', where people on an airplane awakening to find many passengers missing.* TheProblemWithLicensedVideogames: ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Behind:_Eternal_Forces Left Behind: Eternal Forces]]'' is so bad that people who sincerely love the books think it's awful. Let that one sink in for a bit.* RelationshipWritingFumble: As noted above, the unintentional HoYay between Buck and Ray. Ironically, the fact they're both married just makes it ''more'' blatant. * RootingForTheEmpire: Many readers of the series see the heroes as complete jerkasses, God as a psychopath and Nicolae as, at worst, an IneffectualSympatheticVillain.* TheScrappy: While it's arguable that many if not all the characters are this, the absolute ''hated'' character appears in the first book. He's a medical doctor who helps Buck mend his wounds since he's bored and has nothing to do. He says this while he's ''at an airport that's filled with burning wreckage and suffering victims.'' * SoBadItsGood: Considered this by many people.* StrawmanHasAPoint: ** This is a problem with the series of books, as noted in the [[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/ Slacktivist blog deconstructing it]]. The main heroes are such jerks that many of the people with whom they argue come off looking much better by comparison. For example, in the first chapter, a drunk Texan wakes up and sees the carnage wrought by the Rapture (plane crashes, etc). He is mocked as a silly drunk by the narrators, but he is ''[[OnlySaneMan the only one]]'' to express any sort of horror at the proceedings. In the next book, we are clearly supposed to cheer for the alleged hero as he is insubordinate to his boss -- whose main crime seems to be being a woman who does not fawn over him and expects him to do his job.** Verna Zee is constantly presented as a no-fun, uppity woman who thinks Buck is a pompous {{Jerkass}}. And she's right.** [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation The "heroes"]] are supposed to be callous to the suffering at this point, as they have not been "saved" and are still unrepentant sinners. The problem is, even after they are saved and supposedly become model Christians, they [[IgnoredEpiphany still consider others' suffering to be a minor inconvenience]]. The only notes of genuine regret or contrition come from the supposedly un-saved.* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Done right, a story set during a Rapture-like event could have been quite potent character-driven ReligiousHorror, if the plot, the premise, and its implications were well-thought-out and the characters were sympathetic. Unfortunately, none of that is the case. Examples of FixFic, both intentional and not, include:** The blog "[[http://exharpazo.blogspot.com/ Right Behind]]" takes some of the lingering queries about the world of ''Left Behind'' and explores the implications of the setting to their logical conclusion. ** The HBO series ''Series/TheLeftovers'' also begins with a sizable population of Earth spontaneously disappearing. Answers to explain the disappearance are not forthcoming, so people turn to religion, cults and self-destructive behavior to cope.** A 4Chan quest appropriately titled Left Beyond, which takes the last 100 years of the Millennial Kingdom and attempts to build a scenario in which The Other Light fight back through AwesomenessByAnalysis - given the significant time span, what starts off as a semi-realistic scenario ends with a NinjaPirateZombieRobot or two. You can find it at http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=left%20beyond* UnintentionallySympathetic:** Verna Zee is intended as something of a ButtMonkey, a shrieking harpy who dislikes Buck whom Buck in turn stands up to and puts her in her place. However, given Buck's opinion of himself and Verna's motivation seeming to simply get him to do his job, Buck's treatment of her can seem rather unjustified and awful. ** Carpathia himself to a degree, despite being the BigBad and the AntiChrist. Early in the story he comes across as, at worst, a WellIntentionedExtremist with emphasis on the "Well Intentioned". A lot of the main cast do a lot of judging of him internally, but given that the judgement has more to do with who he is than with the actions he takes, it can come across as unfair. Even when he's been established as possessing vast amounts of power and evil, we rarely see him succeed at anything at least not without cost. Add to the fact, that at least once in every book we get a scene where the heroes get to play petty pranks on him without repercussions; like when he's desecrating the temple and about to give his big speech to the world that he is god, they just hack his camera and turn off the audio to humiliate him. Or when New Babylon is plunged into darkness, Rayford amuses himself by staying out of sight and taunting Carpathia from the darkness. Newly resurrected and fully possessed by Satan, and David is allowed to vomit on him without being torn apart by Nicolae's followers. Even God gets in on the act, and causes all the GC planes to collapse in a horrific pile when they are giving an airshow in his honor.* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Irene Steele. '"Can you imagine, Rafe," she exulted. "Jesus coming back to get us before we die?"' She says this knowing that Rayford isn't all that religious a person. It's supposed to show how good a Christian she is, but it just makes her seem like she's trying to show off her faith to feel better than people who don't believe. She seems like the kind of person who says grace in a really loud tone of voice whenever she's at a restaurant just so she can feel superior to the other people there, who either don't say grace at all or do it in a reasonable tone of voice (or even say it silently). When Chloe is planning to go off to college on a scholarship and Irene is adamant that she stay and go to church with her (to the point of threatening to have Ray ''force'' Chloe into the car to go,) this is supposed to be a demonstration of Irene's care for her daughter and Chloe's ungratefulness. It comes across as Irene having no respect for her daughter's intelligence and growing independence. ** This is more ValuesDissonance: to the writers, and many in their particular brand of Christianity, "intelligence and growing independence" are not positive qualities. Intellect is seen as an enemy of Faith (the books state this outright many times), and "independence" is seen as "willful disobedience".* ValuesDissonance: The books are written with a particular religious demographic in mind as their intended readership. Said demographic (being almost entirely confined to the USA, at that) has a very particular set of values, which are not necessarily widely shared outside of it. Even within American evangelical Christianity it's far from mainstream.** The AntiChrist being [[HasTwoMommies the child of two gay men]] would seem like an accidental family unfriendly Aesop, but is actually an [[AvertedTrope aversion]], since those implications were fully intended. However, other things, such as God smiting the unbelievers and torturing them in hell for eternity simply for being ignorant or wanting to support global peace, tends to imply that GodIsEvil, which was [[GodIsGood not the author's intention.]]** The implication that GodIsEvil also comes from his tendency to torture people for eternity on purely religious (and not moral) grounds. Furthermore, since everything in the book is supposedly predestined, none of the people condemned to Hell [[YouCantFightFate had any choice in the matter.]] Depending on how much slack you want to give on His OmniscientMoralityLicense, the series's version of God could range from being an anti-hero to a full-out TheBadGuyWins. Not that the authors believe that, of course, [[[[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=left%20beyond although 4chan apparently does.]]** And ''then'' there's...everything dealing with Israel and the Jews. The bits that make sense are all kinds of horrible.** Buck blackmails a woman with the threat of outing her as a lesbian if she reveals certain information that she has, and that she legitimately feels the public has the right to know. Chloe, his wife, [[EnsembleDarkhorse who used to be a realistic, fairly nice woman]] before she was [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks 'saved']], laughs about said blackmail. Even better, the scene in question plays out exactly like the opening to a standard smear campaign to harass a woman out of her position (she's his boss, who he's been disrespecting, belittling, and treating like his secretary because he thinks she's not good enough). Buck brings up, out of nowhere, "Well, what if I go around telling everyone you're a lesbian? How will you like that?" It's not even clear initially that she ''is'' a lesbian, since her response is simply to panic at the idea he's going to start spreading the rumor and deny it (not that this stops him from taking this as "proof"). Later Buck takes over her office and, when she comes in to demand to know what he's doing, he attempts to kick the door into her face. This is, of course, presented as one of his great heroic actions in the books, and also totally hilarious, even more than blackmailing her.*** The blackmail story itself reveals even more ValuesDissonance between the writers and a large chunk of contemporary society, namely that blackmailing someone about being a lesbian would even ''work''; most people these days in North America wouldn't care if someone working at a newspaper (or anywhere, now including the military) was gay. Actually trying it would probably destroy ''his'' reputation.** There's [[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/11/05/left-behind-index-the-whole-thing/ a huge blog dedicated to discussing the Values Dissonance]] and general craptastic writing in that series. Notable examples: The protagonist Airline Pilot who considers himself a hero for refusing to ride on a bus from his plane to O'Hare Terminal, even though this requires him to walk around plane wrecks and ignore the dead and wounded inside. And the protagonist Reporter who discovers an International Conspiracy after it murders his close friend, and then runs right to the head of that conspiracy and trades silence for his life. It should be noted that Slacktivist is primarily an evangelical blog, so in theory he should be the target demographic.* TheWoobie: Cendrillon Jospin goes to Hell, despite having spent most of her career lovingly looking after children.!!For the [[Film/LeftBehind2000 2000-2005 Cloud Ten Pictures films]]:* [[YMMV/LeftBehind2000 Go here]].!!For the [[Film/LeftBehind2014 2014 film]]:* [[YMMV/LeftBehind2014 Go here]].----